Thursday, February 25, 2010

On February 12 we had our kick off event for the Vermont part of our project Painting New England Preserving the Landscape. We were joined by Becca Washburn of the Stowe Land Trust who arranged for us to have our paintings displayed at The Green Mountain Inn in Stowe.

Becca Washburn with her Stowe Land Trust Info

It was a beautiful afternoon in Vermont. The Inn had tea and cookies out for their guests and people wandered in to look at the paintings and hear about our project.

I have posted some of the paintings below.

Stowe Village 11'x13" David Lussier

Mt Mansfield 11"x14" David Lussier

After the Sleigh Ride 11"x14" Pamela Simpson Lussier

Break TIme 11"x14" Pamela Simpson Lussier

Bouchard Farm 9"x12" David Lussier

Pleasant Valley 9"x12" David Lussier

Amy Rahn, a reporter for Seven Days Newspaper in Burlington Vermont wrote a great article about our Stowe Event. I have provided a link here if you would like to read it.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

This morning I woke up with my head in the clouds. Well, maybe not literally, since I live in what's known as Woodstock Valley Connecticut, but figuratively speaking, my mind was thinking about mountains.

Today Pam and I will do all the final preparations of getting things ready for our kick-off in Stowe Vermont on Friday afternoon. Yup, we are headed back to Mount Mansfield. We both need to sign a few of the paintings we are bringing with us and we our both even trying to finish one more painting each before we hit the road. Photographing artwork before it leaves the studio is always a must, so we have that to do today too along with varnishing, framing and packing up the paintings and a suitcase of belongings. Add to that, getting things together for our Nx Stage Cycler and Pure Flow System and I will cannulate Pam's fistula and then we can dialyze her for about 3 hours of this glorious sun filled day. Finding a way to fit eveything into this day is going to be tricky. Especially with my head already in the clouds...

Part of the Lamoille County, Mount Mansfield rises 4393 feet into the air and attracts people to it for all sorts of reasons. This is big skiing country, but for a couple of painters, it is simply a thing to look at with awe and fascination and then make an attempt to capture some part of its majesty on canvas.

With my mind thinking about Vermont, I'm reminded about the town of Jeffersonville on the other side of Stowe. This is where painters like Emile Gruppe and Aldro T Hibbard spent a great deal of their time painting the winter landscape. One of my first real painting trips to Vermont was to Jeffersonville. I made a trip with my friend and mentor, George Carpenter and we spent a week painting all around that area. This is going back over twenty years! I knew right away as we drove thru Smugglers Notch and down into Jeffersonville, that I would be back many times to paint this big and beautiful countryside. George would tell me stories about Gruppe, who was a friend of his and I would also hear a great deal about Tommy Curtin and lots of other painters. Once when we were there, we met up with Paul Strisk and a group of Rockport painters and we spent some time painting with them, dining with them and even celebrating Alden Bryan's birthday with a little dinner party after a full day of painting. These were exciting moments for a young artist in his twenties. They are memories that I look back on very fondly.

Many times since then, Pam and I have indeed been back to paint around Stowe, around Jeffersonville and the different parts of Lamoille County, so going back there as part of the 'Paint New England' project was like going back to visit an old friend. I could go on and on about the fascination that Pam and I both share about this part of New England. As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure it will take up most of my thinking moments during the day today!

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

On Friday February 12th from 3-5pm, we will hold a kick-off in Stowe Vermont at the beautiful Green Mountain Inn. We will have some recent paintings of Stowe as well as other parts of the Lamoille County on view and for sale. Thirty percent of painting sales will go back to the Stowe Land Trust.

We are doing this event with the Stowe Land Trust and we were thrilled to have the opportunity to visit and paint some of the land that they have been able to preserve through their great efforts. Their web site is pretty special and well worth taking a good look at.

During our most recent visit to Stowe, we spent a long weekend of winter painting and were blessed with a mix of sun and clouds and therefore a lot of good drama in the mountains. As plein air painters this was exciting stuff and a nice challenge too. We had some great painting time together and also found some time inbetween paintings to gather some reference material.

We stayed at the Stowe Motel, which we really have to give kudos to, as they provided nice accomodations at a most reasonable rate. Our room was an efficiency which gave us the opportunity to make our own meals. After the five hour drive, which seemed rather short when compared to a fairly recent drive to Colorado, we saw a Mexican restaurant across the street which looked like a good place to get some late dinner. We shared some great tasting ribs and had a bit of sangria too.

We ended our excursion with a stop at The Ben & Jerry's Factory for some of that amazing ice cream. You just can't visit Stowe and not have that on your list of places to visit. We will paint in Stowe one more time before this event and probably say to each other what we always say when we are in the Green Mountains 'We should live here in the winter' !

Welcome to our pleinair blog. In August of 09, we teamed up with writer Gail Braccidiferro to launch a multi-year project to bring attention to the threats on the history and land New Englanders cherish. We will be working with preservation groups all along the way. Thirty percent of all sales of our paintings will go to each group that we work with. The project will culminate with a book as well as a travelling exhibit of work. We will dedicate most posts on our blogspot towards sharing this great adventure with you and continue to post workshops and other interesting stories as well.